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Thursday, June 17, 2004

GT just won the first annual "ACC Sportamanship Award", as voted by each of the ACC schools. Story here. Each sponsored sport has an individual award and GT was the winner outright in 3 of those spring sports - Women's tennis, Men's Track & Field, and Women's Track & Field. Now it appears this award is new and only covered spring sports. Virginia got the award in beesball and Clemson in golf.

So, what is the greater significance? Does winning something like reinforce and promote ethical practices? Does it mean GT best represents the way sports should be played? Does it make it acceptable to not grow consistently winning programs if we are running our programs the "right" way?

A lot of this discussion always gets back to expectations. Do we want what O'Leary use to say we wanted - Harvard on the weekdays and FSU on the weekends? I'll tell you what I want. I want Georgia Tech 7 days a week. And that means you won't find us at the bottom of the ACC. Year-in and year-out you will find us competing anywhere from 1st - 5th place, no matter the sport. And every few years we have one of those seasons where everything comes together and magic happens. I was at GT in one of those years - 1990. Could be considered the best ever. It meant something because those of us who have been through GT know the rigors, the challenges, the blood, sweat and tears. It is special to graduate from GT. And to have that AND consistently winning programs is special. Not many programs can compete. Even mighty Stanford is in a different class. Stanford's hook and reputation centers around how hard it is to get in. GT's reputation centers around how hard it is to get out. An important distinction.

Congratulations to Dave Braine and the various programs that contributed to winning this award. It just confirms what we strongly believe in as GT alumni. GO JACKETS!!!